The fact that a smaller Yellow Pages publisher such as New York's Ambassador has adopted a fixed fee/guaranteed clicks program shows that momentum is building around this product concept. There are now multiple players ("small business aggregators") in the market…
Tuesday€™s article in the New York Times about Google€™s million dollar employee incentives inspired Shawn Wiora, a former Verizon Information Services manager and Yellow Pages consultant, to send me an e-mail asking what might happen if directory publishers followed suit…
The so-called €œsearch wars€ have opened a new front€"mobile. Yesterday Yahoo! introduced Local Send to Phone, which enables users to send and store listings (business names, address, phone, cross-streets, etc.) on SMS-enabled mobile phones free of charge€"though carrier text messaging…
Now that Google has formally joined AOL, Yahoo!, Blinxx and others in offering TV/video search, the time has come to speculate more seriously about Web-TV convergence.As more and more video content (and related rich media advertising) goes online, will search…
Gary Rivlin wrote an interesting piece in today's NYTimes about Friendster's fortunes and how it's been eclipsed by MySpace in the critical 18 to 29 demographic. That demographic, right now, is Friendster's entire value proposition to advertisers. The article suggests…
AOL is upgrading its search functionality and interfaces and taking €œbaby steps€ toward personalization (i.e., saving recent searches). An extensive discussion of the enhancements is available at Search Engine Watch. The company is bringing together many disparate elements to create…
Empirical research has a habit of confirming what people already know. In this case, ShopLocal and The Dieringer Group released a study, which tracked consumer shopping during the final three months of 2004. The study found that so-called Web-to-Store shoppers€"those…
Yesterday Keynote Systems (formerly Vividence Corporation) released the results of a consumer survey that reported Yahoo!, MSN and Ask Jeeves making gains in search market share and user perceptions. The survey, based on observation and interaction with 2,000 consumers, found…
Conferences tend to reflect how the business is right now. When business is struggling, publishers will either put a numerical limit on the total number of employees that can attend an event or institute the more draconian requirement that everyone…
A report in Australia€™s The Age newspaper citing unnamed sources within the Australian government says the spin-off of Sensis Pty. Ltd. by its parent company Telstra is in the works. The story was posted on theage.com.au on Feb. 8.Within the…
I joined the residential marketing group at AT&T in 1978 because my Director convinced me that €œthe Biggest Company on Earth€ was going to become a marketing driven company. I was young and na¯ve then, and I should have paid…
Recently, start-up Find YP launched a competitive product to the Yellow Pages Association??s (YPA) IRIS Rates & Data product called eRates and Data. eRates and Data is a Web-based database that provides the same data as YPA??s product as well…
We learned earlier today that Pat Marshall has departed Verizon Information Services. Few people in the directory business have as much experience in the application of new technology as Pat does. Pat€™s been on the leading edge of most new…
Recently, start-up Find YP launched a competitive product to the Yellow Pages Association€™s (YPA) IRIS Rates & Data product called eRates and Data. eRates and Data is a Web-based database that provides the same data as YPA€™s product as well…
Last week, I sat down for a breakfast interview in London with Yell Group CEO John Condron at the Connaught Hotel, a power breakfaster€™s power breakfast spot. Over his porridge, Condron talked about the state of the business today, and…
The California Department of Parks and Recreation announced that as many as 85 of the state's 278 parks will offer Wi-Fi access this coming summer. Now for $7.95 per day or $19.95 per month, a portion of California's 85 million…
While reading yesterday€™s business section of the New York Times, I had the feeling I had somehow picked up a newspaper from 10 years ago. High Tech Isn€™t Just for the Big Guys was the headline in an article about…
While BT makes a full court press on Yell's Yellow Pages business in the U.K., 5,000 miles east China Netcom plans to enter the southern China Yellow Pages market. The whole Yellow Pages market in China is estimated by China…
Britain€™s Guardian newspaper reported today that British Telecom plans to spend up to 10 million pounds €" about US$18 million €" promoting its BT Phone Book product this year. This represents a significant upping of the ante by BT, which…
Last week, ClickZ wrote an analysis of the state of local search advertising. Using the €œGoogle Zeitgeist,€ the article reported that only 1 in 20 searches on Google Local generated ads from small businesses, as opposed to geotargeted ads from…
